The good, the bad, and the dumb of the Saskatchewan Roughriders’ 44-24 loss to Montreal

Photo: Saskatchewan Roughriders

The only thing Saskatchewan Roughriders fans have to be thankful for this Thanksgiving is that this game is over.

The Riders travelled east to Montreal to take on the top-ranked Alouettes in a rematch of last year’s Grey Cup game in Winnipeg. Unlike that fateful night in November, the Als took this one with ease by a score of 44-24.

These two teams are going in two very different directions. Montreal’s game is still climbing upward, while the Riders are spilling down the standings like a knocked over gravy boat.

With the loss, Saskatchewan won’t host a playoff game for the first time in Corey Mace era, and it’s also still possible that they could miss the playoffs altogether — something that seemed impossible just a few weeks ago.

As usual, a lot can change in the CFL. The Riders could still turn it around and salvage something out of this season, but it feels unlikely at this point.

Here’s the good, the bad, and the dumb of the Riders’ eighth loss of the season.

The Good

It’s safe to say that not much went well for the Riders against the Alouettes, even though they played arguably their best game since Labour Day — not that it’s an incredibly high bar at this point.

A bright spot for the club was the return of return specialist Mathew Sexton to the lineup.

Sexton had been out since suffering a gruesome leg injury on July 12 in a 38-7 win over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats. I was admittedly surprised to see him practicing this week given how bad the injury looked.

Prior to the injury, Sexton proved to be a great find for the Roughriders through the two games he played, which included an electric 101-yard punt return touchdown. While Sexton didn’t rise to that level on Monday afternoon at McGill, he did provide a spark, averaging nearly 25 yards on kick returns, including an impressive 42-yard return.

The Riders have been looking for a promising returner for a while, and Sexton appears to be that guy.

Bonus Good

It’s always appreciated when TSN puts some extra effort into their broadcast and they did on Monday afternoon in Montreal.

They picked a great day to do it, too, as Molson Stadium has arguably the best scenery in the league, despite not being a very good facility. The drone shots of the changing leaves surrounding the stadium were simply stunning.

It was a great broadcast and just another reason to have more afternoon games, so we can see these kinds of things.

The Bad

In short, just about everything was bad.

It was another week of an ineffective offence for Marc Mueller’s unit. After having a rough go in the red zone a couple games ago in Vancouver, the Riders haven’t even reached the red zone outside of garbage time in two consecutive outings.

There’s no greater difference between these two teams than what we see on offence. For the Als, it comes easy. They can create points quickly and out of no where. The Riders need to scrape and claw for every single point. Nothing comes easy.

No play exemplified this more than when Davis Alexander escaped from a couple of near sacks to dump the ball off to Stevie Scott III as he was falling for a 17-yard gain. Two plays later, the Als were in the end zone and took a lead they never gave up.

The Riders are incapable of making something out of nothing. Everything has to be go right for this team on offence to produce anything. Part of that is Trevor Harris, as that’s never been his style, and it certainly won’t be this late into his career, but the problems for this team on offence go deeper than just the quarterback.

Saskatchewan was only down 17-16 at one point late in the first half but couldn’t produce anything of substance the rest of the way, and unsurprisingly, the wheels eventually fell off for the defence, which wasn’t exactly great themselves but did just enough to leave the door open at making this a game.

I don’t know what the answer is and it’s too late in the year to completely change the team’s approach on offence, but this team is going to have to take a long look in the mirror over the winter to figure out how to be more explosive.

The Dumb

We didn’t see much turkey in this one.

Often the traditional Thanksgiving feast is a big part of the broadcast on TSN. I didn’t watch the pre-game show, but once the game broadcast began we saw it before kickoff, as Rod Smith and Paul LaPolice took one bite early on.

The bird then went missing until late when Smith had a leg bone and LaPolice was eating a bun. Its disappearance was also a bit on the broadcast throughout the game.

Perhaps this was on purpose, as the turkey Smith and LaPolice took a bite out of early-on looked very overcooked and dry. If that’s the case, then it was probably for the better. No one wants to eat dust-dry turkey, especially without access to gravy.